12 years, 9 apologies: When and why Mark Zuckerberg said sorry

NEW DELHI, MAY 25
On Tuesday, Facebook Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg apologised to EU lawmakers on Tuesday and said the company had not done enough to prevent misuse of the social network. The apology came on back of a controversy which saw Facebook being embroiled in a data scandal after it emerged that the personal data of 87 million users were improperly accessed by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica.
However, this is not the first time that Zuckerberg has had to apologise on data privacy and abuse issues. Here is a look back at when and why Zuckerberg has apologised:
1) September 2006: Close on the heels of the launch of Twitter in March 2006, Facebook came up with its new product called ‘news feed’. The social media giant describes the ‘news feed’ as a “constantly updating list of stories in the middle of your home page”. Scores of users saw this as an intrusion of privacy and for the first time since the launch of Facebook two years ago.
2) December 2007: A year later Facebook had to apologise for telling people what their friends had bought after it launched a programme called Beacon. The programme allegedly gave out personal information such as users’ online purchases and video rentals on third party sites into the News Feed without their knowledge or consent.
3) May 2010: About two and a half years later, Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Facebook was among several social networking sites “have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers’ names and other personal details, despite promises they don’t share such information without consent”.
4) November 2011: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Facebook falsely claimed that third-party apps were able to access only the data they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of a user’s personal data.